Eye of the Red Tsar Read Online Free

again on the platform
.
    In those days of waiting, Pekkala became aware of a permanent change in his father. The man was like a clock whose mechanism had suddenly broken. On the outside, little had altered, but inside he was wrecked. It did not matter why Anton was returning. It was the fact of the return which had changed the neatly plotted course Pekkala’s father had laid out for his family
.
    After two weeks without word from Anton, Pekkala no longer went to the station to wait for his brother
.
    When a month had gone by, it was clear that Anton would not be returning
.
    Pekkala’s father cabled the Finnish Garrison to inquire about his son
.
    They replied, this time in a letter, that on such and such a day Anton had been escorted to the gates of the barracks, that he had been given a train ticket home and money for food, and that he had not been seen since
.
    Another cable, requesting the reason for Anton’s dismissal, received no reply at all
.
    By this time, Pekkala’s father had withdrawn so far inside himself that he seemed only the shell of a man. Meanwhile, his mother calmly insisted that Anton would return when he was ready, but the strain of holding on to this conviction was wearing her away, like a piece of sea glass tumbled into nothing by the motion of the waves against the sand
.
    One day, when Anton had been gone almost three months, Pekkala and his father were putting the finishing touches on a body scheduled for viewing. His father was bent over the dead woman, carefully brushing the eyelashes of the deceased with the tips of his fingers. Pekkala heard his father breathe in suddenly. He watched the man’s back straighten, as if his muscles were spasming. “You are leaving,” he said
.
    “Leaving where?” asked Pekkala
.
    “For St. Petersburg. To join the Finnish Regiment. I have already filled out your induction papers. In ten days, you will report to the garrison. You will take his place.” He could no longer even call Anton by name
.
    “What about my apprenticeship? What about the business?”
    “It’s done, boy. There is nothing to discuss.”
    Ten days later, Pekkala leaned from the window of an eastbound train, waving to his parents until their faces were only pink cat licks in the distance and the ranks of pine closed up around the little station house
.
     
     
     

3
     
     
    PEKKALA LOOKED THE police officer in the eye.
    For a moment, the man hesitated, wondering why a prisoner would dare to match his gaze. His jaw muscles clenched. “Time you learned to show respect,” he whispered.
    “He is under the protection of the Bureau of Special Operations,” said Kirov.
    “Protection?” laughed the policeman. “For this tramp? What’s his name?”
    “Pekkala,” replied Kirov.
    “Pekkala?” The policeman let go of him as if his hand had clamped down on hot metal. “What do you mean?
The
Pekkala?”
    The old man was still on his knees in the dirt, watching the argument taking place on the steps of the police station.
    “Go!” yelled the policeman.
    The old man did not move. “Pekkala,” he muttered, and as he spoke blood trickled from the corners of his mouth.
    “I said get out of here, damn you!” shouted the policeman, his face turning red.
    Now the old man rose to his feet and started walking down the road. Every few paces, he turned his head and looked back at Pekkala.
    Kirov and Pekkala pushed past the policeman and made their way down a corridor lit only by the gloomy filtering of daylight through the barred and glassless windows.
    As they walked, Kirov turned to Pekkala. “Who the hell
are
you?” he asked.
    Pekkala did not reply. He followed the young Commissar towards a door at the end of the corridor. The door was half open.
    The young man stepped aside.
    Pekkala walked into the room.
    A man sat at a desk in the corner. Other than the chair in which he sat, this was the only piece of furniture. On his tunic, he wore the rank of a Commander in the Red Army. His